Ed Koch Says New Documentary Captures Him ‘Warts and All’

Former Mayor Ed Koch and filmmaker Neil Barsky at a showing of the documentary “Koch” in New York.

“Koch,” a documentary by first-time filmmaker Neil Barsky, depicts a New York barely recognizable today as it grappled with graffiti, arson, rampant crime, crack, AIDS and racial strife; a city that was on the brink of bankruptcy and was the laughing stock of the country. And he shows how Mayor Ed Koch (1978 to 1989), as polarizing as he was popular, transformed the city with his chutzpah and larger-than-life personality.

“Ed Koch’s mayoralty is really the story … of the formation of contemporary New York, its fall and rise, if you will,” said Barsky, whose film opens in New York theaters this Friday, followed by a national rollout and a March 1 showing in Los Angeles. The 88-year-old Koch missed the premiere of the documentary after re-entering the hospital on Monday, two days after he was released, for fluid in his lungs.

“When he became mayor it was far from clear that the city had a bright future…. So I wanted to understand the New York of today. What happened to the burned-out buildings in the Bronx, how did Times Square get this way, why we’re a safe city. And I believe now that the seeds of the recovery of New York were planted under Koch, by Koch, notwithstanding a whole bunch of issues he had as mayor and a whole bunch of legacies,” he said.

Barsky also wanted to do a movie about Koch because he’s “a great character. He’s funny, he’s in your face, he had a style as a politician that practically does not exist anymore. He would go into the Bronx and debate people. He was one of the great street politicians …. And in fact when we film him in 2010 you’ll see he hasn’t changed that much. He still has that love of engaging with the public,” said Barsky, whose 15-year career as reporter (including at The Wall Street Journal) was followed by work in finance and academia.

Using interviews, archival footage and photographs, the film shows highlights from Koch’s political career: as a four-term congressman running in a field of seven candidates to win the Democratic nomination for mayor in 1977 and then defeating Liberal Party candidate Mario Cuomo to become the city’s 105thmayor. The film shows Koch going to Washington to get loan guarantees, rallying New Yorkers on the city’s bridges during the 1980 subway strike, making the racially divisive move to close Harlem’s Sydenham Hospital and dealing with the growing AIDS crisis. It also shows Koch’s affordable housing initiatives, the revival of Times Square, and the municipal corruption scandal that tainted his bid to win a fourth term.

Koch, in an interview at his law office in Midtown Manhattan, said he liked the film, which was shown earlier this month at the New York Jewish Film Festival. “I’ve seen it now I think three times and each time I liked it even more. …It showed my professional life and I don’t think they did anything that was hostile and unsupportable. They showed me warts and all. I just have no objections. I mean, when I went into it, that’s what I expected, warts and all.”

Would he change anything? “If I had been in charge, I’d have come out better,” he said, smiling.

Barsky said politicians like Koch are “a lost breed,” adding that the movie is “in many ways about the art of politics.” Granted full access, Barsky and his crew follow the three-term mayor campaigning for candidates, making TV appearances, hobnobbing with politicians and admirers on election night, and being told when he wanted to greet Andrew Cuomo that Cuomo wasn’t meeting anyone until after returns for the gubernatorial election were in (prompting Koch to call him “a schmuck”). “Here people like me had come especially to say hello,” said Koch during the interview, and with him the effort was “especially painful” because he has spinal stenosis. The evening ends with the camera capturing Koch, a frail figure, going home alone to his apartment. (“I knew what Neil was doing. I knew what he wanted to convey,” Koch said of that scene.)

Zeitgeist Films

Ed Koch in a scene from “Koch.”

The movie also gives an intimate look at Koch’s personal life, showing the lifelong bachelor with his extended family, his friends, at his apartment and even visiting his already-prepared gravesite (complete with an already-inscribed tombstone). The cemetery on 155th Street, though it isn’t Jewish, is nondenominational and open to visitors. “I want a bustling cemetery even though I’m not around,” Koch said. “There’s a tree there, I have a stone bench and I hope people will come.”

Said Barsky, “I think he’s a guy who’s lived life his way and he says in the film he has no regrets. And I think in some ways this film shows that he traded a life in the public eye for a rich personal life. So I do think it reveals a lot about him.”

Asked about regrets, Koch cited the closing of Sydenham Hospital. “I did it on the merits. But I didn’t take into consideration the psychological aspect of it, the impact on blacks who love that hospital not because it made them healthy but because it made a statement that the black community was able to open a hospital when the white community wouldn’t let them into the white hospitals. And I didn’t realize that. I didn’t take it into consideration. So had I to do it over I would say maybe on the merits but it’s not common sense,” he said.

Koch appeared amused that questions about his private life, covered in the film, still persist. “I’m 88 years old, it’s sort of complementary that they think to connect me with sexuality at this point,” he said.

“Let me put it this way: any male politician who is unmarried and is in his 40s or 50s or above, there will be that undercurrent thought. And there will be lots of people who are gay who won’t run for office in fear of being asked and not wanting to lie, and not wanting to in some cases distress their family or friends… It’s a personal decision as to whether someone who is gay should respond to the question. I’m sure that people who elected me, some of them thought I was gay, some of them thought I wasn’t gay, and most of them didn’t care.

“When I was first elected I got 50% of the vote in ‘77 in the general election. In ‘81 I got 75%. In ’85, I got 78%. No mayor has ever gotten that high a vote. So it was not an issue. Except for people who were very hostile to me. They thought they would injure me,” said Koch.

“My response to the question of sexuality is…it’s none of your business. And I will, to the day of my death. Now, why? Because if I answer that question, I legitimatize that question and then anybody can ask that question of any candidate and they can put it on the questionnaire. …That would prevent lots of people from running,” Koch said.

Koch said he hopes “when people leave [after seeing the film], they would say he was a very good mayor.” He has led an active schedule since leaving office, writing 14 books, as well as movie reviews and commentaries. He’s even on Twitter. “I write it all. I’m very proud of that. And when I left office in ’89, I said for me the most important part of life is being relevant, that people are interested in what you have to say, give credibility and credence to your philosophy and so forth. And I think I’ve done it. …I’m now out of office 22 years, but people remember me. I doubt that that’s true of most people who’re out of office for 22 years.”